An Approach to Developing a Working Theology of Organizations

Transcription

1 An Approach to Developing a Working Theology of Organizations By David Specht, Richard Broholm and Ed Mosel This essay explores Robert Greenleaf's call for a theology of institutions, and his conviction about the important role that religious congregations and seminaries might play in helping to hold organizations in trust around the exercise of their power and prerogative. The authors bring the perspective of many years of involvement in action-research devoted to developing a practical theology of organizational life. David Specht serves as Director of Seeing Things Whole, an action-research effort focused on exploring the intersection of faith, work and organizational life. Richard Broholm, founder of Seeing Things Whole, served as the first Director of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, and as a conversation partner to Robert Greenleaf during the latter years of his life. Ed Mosel is General Manager of an organization which has partnered with Seeing Things Whole as an action-research site where we have collaborated around the effort to operationalize a practical theology of organizational life. This paper begins with a brief consideration of the way in which Greenleaf's call for a theology of institutions speaks to the conviction that the key to creating a more humane and caring society lies in the renewal of the servant spirit of existing institutions and the recovery of their true calling through the efforts of men and women prepared to serve as regenerative agents within these institutions. The authors then reflect on key learnings emerging from a ten-year effort to develop a working theology of institutions, including our efforts to operationalize it within Ed s organization, and conclude with a note about possible next steps for continuing this exploration. THE PROBLEM T his particular moment in history is both a terribly auspicious and incredibly exciting moment to be exploring Robert Greenleaf s call for a theology of institutions. The highly-publicized failures of corporate leadership at Enron, World Com, Tyco, Arthur Anderson, and the Roman Catholic Church in the United States have dramatically harmed the lives of tens of thousands of persons in and outside of these institutions while at the same time deeply shaking the confidence of the public at large in our nation s institutions and those who lead them. While there are innumerable opportunities for leadership to fail, these failures were especially grievous, for in each instance they appeared to reflect a fundamental lack of clarity on the part of those in leadership about what and whom they were holding in trust. Add to these specific events the high level of ambient anxiety that has permeated our public and private lives since the events of September 11; the ensuing preoccupation of our government with the war on terrorism; and the present economic malaise impacting the lives of families, communities and organizations, and we are faced with a level of collective dispiritedness and lack of confidence in the commitment and capacity of public and private institutions unmatched since near the end of the Vietnam War. So it is a terribly auspicious moment to be responding to Greenleaf s call for the development of a theology of institutions. Particularly so because in several instances those whose betrayal of the trust of

2 leadership has been so well publicized have also been active church members. This has been especially painful and wounding irony in those cases where the failure of leadership has taken place within religious institutions themselves. 1 At the same time it is also an incredibly exciting and provocative time to explore the lively intersection of human spirit, sacred traditions, leadership, and the vocation of organizations. For it was precisely during the social and political ferment of the late 1960s and early 70s with its widespread apprehension about the trustworthiness of our institutions and those who led them that Greenleaf began to speak and write about the idea of servant leadership and its inextricable link to servant institutions. THE CALL THE EMERGENCE OF A CALL FOR A THEOLOGY OF INSTITUTIONS An idea whose time has come frequently emerges simultaneously from more than a single source, as its essential truth is recognized from a variety of vantage points. This was certainly the case in the emergence of the call for the development of a theology of institutions, which, at least as we experienced it, arrived from two voices. Robert Greenleaf s perspective was shaped primarily by his life as a student of organizations and leadership, first within AT&T as the Director of Management Research and following that as a consultant to leadership in universities, business, foundations and religious institutions. In 1970, Greenleaf wrote his seminal essay profoundly reshaping our understanding of the true nature and purpose of leadership, The Servant as Leader. Two years later, in 1972, Greenleaf s second essay, The Institution As Servant was published: This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person-toperson, now most of it is mediated through institutions often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them. 2 Greenleaf was not alone in recognizing the necessity of raising the servant-capacity of existing institutions. During that same period, from , six Protestant denominations came together at the initiative of American Baptist Church leader Jitsuo Morikawa to form MAP (Metropolitan Associates of Philadelphia), an action research program of the World Council of Churches designed to explore how the church could more effectively relate to men and women who lead and serve in so-called secular organizations within an urban context. Central to MAP s approach was the recruitment of 125 Lay Associates men and women employed in a variety of organizations from six sectors of the city: Education and Arts; Business and Industry; Social Organization; Politics and Government; Health and Welfare; and Physical Development. 6 Urban Agents clergy salaried by their denominations were assigned to each of these sectors to support and resource these Associates in identifying key issues shaping their organization s response to key issues impacting the future of the city. Additionally, there were 8 Worker Ministers, clergy who found employment in a variety of secular occupations in the political, business, social service and educational sectors of Philadelphia. 2

3 When asked why the church was becoming involved in secular organizations, Morikawa spoke about institutions in distinctly religious terms: We are here in order to discern, participate in and celebrate God s activity in the city. The church today is immersed in talk about mission. But little is being done to test out how laity can participate in mission through the public institutions of the metropolis. If humankind is called to affect history and the reshaping of the world, then men and women in business, political, social, health, educational and physical planning institutions must see themselves under the mandate of calling; a calling to corporate responsibility. This means that every institution is confronted with the pressing question, To what end? To what purpose do we produce chemicals, educate children, build highways, elect officials, administer medicine, and provide social services? 3 During its last 5 years, MAP focused its energies on trying to better understand the change process within institutions, and the way in which local churches might offer support and empowerment for laity committed to holding their communities in trust through serving as change agents within the organizations where they worked. They referred to this strategy as their wager on the local congregation, and published a resource called A Strategy of Hope offering a guide to support the formation of support groups within congregations and change agent teams within their places of employment. These words from the introduction of A Strategy of Hope describe their vision for local congregations: While many organizations have broken down or become destructive, they are, on the whole, ordered ways of serving God s people by meeting needs and solving problems. We do need them. But, in that they have been structured in such a way that they do not serve all of God s people, but primarily those who are wealthy, white, male and western, they must be changed. In that they are structured in a way which keeps us isolated, alienated and frustrated, they must be restructured. They must be made more human-oriented: they must be humanized. The objective of lay ministry is to develop within the Christian Church a new ministry through the laity to the organizations of the secular world. If lay people are to minister to society they will require clergy who can act as enablers of lay action. They will also require the church to provide resources, both human and financial, as well as guidance, training, and support to lay ministry groups. In fact, the entire structure of the church must be open to enabling the ministry of the laity. 4 A Strategy of Hope was warmly received by a handful of congregations around the country, but for the most part the support of church members as change agents within their workplace institutions was simply not a priority for the institutional church. After its closing in 1974, Dick Broholm, one of MAP s three Co-Directors, returned to his alma mater, Andover Newton Theological School for a sabbatical time of reflecting on the learnings emerging from the MAP years and to explore the seminary s readiness to somehow pursue this work. Here he found support and interest among some faculty for a larger vision of ministry especially from theologian Gabriel Fackre and the seminary s dean of faculty, the late George Peck. With their support, the Andover Newton Laity Project was launched featuring an intensive action-research effort involving six local congregations committed to the intersection of faith and work. Throughout these five years, the pastor and five lay members of each congregation met on a monthly basis with five members of the Andover Newton faculty to reflect on their workplace ministries. They identified nine variables blocking or enabling forces which functioned within their churches to either positively empower members in their workplace ministries in secular institutions or block them in discovering and responding to this call. The learnings from this action-research effort were published in 1979 under the title Empowering Laity For Their Full Ministry and shared broadly with workplace ministry advocates across many denominations. 5 3

4 In the early 1980s, the Laity Project by then institutionalized as The Center for the Ministry of the Laity at Andover Newton - launched several tasks forces of laity and professional theologians in an attempt to further bridge the gap between the church s theology and people s experience in the workplace. By this point I was working with Dick, serving as staff to a task force focused on exploring the implications of this connection, not abstractly, but in the very specific settings of organizations like Digital Equipment Corporation, the Massachusetts State Foster Care Review Unit, the Boston Mayor s Office, and State Mutual Insurance. Once again it was evident that the daily workplace ministries of men and women participating in the task force were inextricably linked not only to individual persons, but to institutions as well. It was clear that in order to think theologically about workplace ministry, we would need to begin to think theologically about the calling of institutions as well. We were primed to rediscover in Robert Greenleaf a conversation partner whose thinking and writing spoke powerfully to our own inquiry. Though not himself a churchman, Greenleaf felt strongly about the role churches could play in the effort to create a more caring society through supporting persons committed to serving as regenerative agents within institutions. In a letter to encourage the work underway at Andover Newton, he contended that the fundamental reconstruction of institutions cannot take place without a strong supporting influence from churches. So long as these churches have only a theology of persons they cannot wield the needed influence on institutions and their leaders. 6 He suggested that the church s theological preoccupation with individuals tended to focus people s thinking on how to ease the hurt of the system, and not enough on how to build a system that can have a positive, growing, liberating, and humanizing impact on people. Moreover, Greenleaf insisted that critical to the task of building transformed institutions is the faith one must have to risk and move boldly into new and uncharted territories. He wrote, While science helps calculate the odds on a decision, belief sustains one in the inevitable uncertainties and anxieties which the originator of regenerative action must bear. A theology of institutions could be a vital ingredient informing and shaping a faith which empowers such risk-taking and institution building; it could also be a critical resource in the development, preparation and sustenance of persons who are committed to being regenerative agents within institutions. 7 Simultaneous to Greenleaf s encouragement, Jitsuo Morikawa was also urging Dick Broholm and his staff to pursue the development a theology of institutions. He wrote: The church has commendably focused its theological discipline on the welfare of individual persons, throughout most of its long history, as a sign of the preciousness of every life in the sight of God. Therefore the ministry of the church is concerned and practiced largely as ministry to persons. But today, more than in the past, the fate or welfare of human life is powerfully affected by the institutions of society; in fact the future is being largely shaped by these economic, political and social institutions of our culture, so that the role of institutions, the moral and social accountability of institutions, becomes perhaps the number one agenda in our historical enterprise. How to confront these powerful organizations, which are our greatest achievement, before they destroy us on the one hand, and how to evoke and provoke them to a fresh discovery and discernment of their true purpose and calling, is the task of an American, indigenous, evocative theology. 8 At the urging of both Greenleaf and Morikawa, and with the support of a modest grant from the Religion Division of the Lilly Endowment, we began to work more explicitly on the development of a theology of institutions through a series of efforts that continues to this day. 4

5 TWO DIMENSIONS OF GREENLEAF S CALL FOR A THEOLOGY OF INSTITUTIONS I believe that there are two complimentary aspects of Greenleaf s call for a theology of institutions, one more pragmatic and strategic and the other more spiritual. In the first we hear Greenleaf, the lifelong student of leadership and organizational life. In the second, we glimpse Greenleaf, the spiritual seeker, a dimension of his journey which came to fuller and more visible expression through his writings during the later years of his life. Both are suggested in these three sentences from his essay, The Need for a Theology of Institutions. I do not believe that the urgently needed fundamental reconstruction of our vast and pervasive structure of institutions can take place, prudently and effectively, without a strong supporting influence from the churches. And I doubt that churches as they now stand, with only a theology of persons to guide them, can wield the needed influence. I deem it imperative that a new and compelling theology of institutions come into being. 9 A Strategic Vision for Churches and Seminaries Beginning with his premise that the best way to create a society that is more just and loving is to raise the capacity to service and the performance as servant of existing institutions, Greenleaf wrestled with the important question of how best to hold institutions in trust in such a way as to awaken this kind of servant spirit. He came to believe that both foundations and religious institutions could together play important strategic roles in helping to realize this possibility. While elements of his thinking about how this might occur are expressed in several of his writings of the late 1970s and early 80s, nowhere is his vision for this possibility more fully articulated than in an essay entitled A Fable. 10 In it Greenleaf imagines representatives of several foundations noting in conversation together that the essential machinery to build a healthier society - seminaries, churches, individuals and operating institutions - was in place, but not functioning. They wondered what might be done to enable seminaries and churches to come alive to the critical role they might play in awakening within these religious institutions a servant spirit. Eventually they undertook a campaign: 1.) calling seminaries to their roles as trustees of the larger society through, 2) training church leadership capable of helping to inspire and equip church members, 3) to serve as regenerative forces capable of transforming society s institutions. Greenleaf s vision for seminaries and churches was not rooted in undo optimism for either. Indeed, while his writings reflect a deep respect for the servant leadership quality of individual religious leaders (Abraham Heschel, Pope John XXIII, and John Woolman) they also in other places suggest a sobered regard for church institutions as suffering from self-preoccupation and general ineffectiveness in addressing the needs of the larger society. 11 Nevertheless, the combination of his own pragmatism and, I suspect, the influence of persons like Gordon Cosby (pastor of Church of the Savior in Washington, DC) and Robert Lynn (then head of the Religion Division of the Lilly Endowment) led him to imagine and then advocate for an enlargement of the strategic role of seminaries and churches in raising the quality of life in the world around them. In reflecting on the process of thinking toward the desirability of this kind of enlarged role for seminaries and churches, Greenleaf wrote Out of my probings, the idea of a hierarchy of institutions evolved. In this hierarchy, I see, at the top, seminaries and foundations. Foundations are in that oversight position because they have the resources and the opportunity to gain perspective that enables them to provide conceptual leadership to colleges and universities Seminaries are in a strategic position to give 5

6 similar support to churches, whose needs are also urgent. In turn, both churches and universities are well placed to give nurture and guidance to individuals and to the whole range of operating institutions. 12 Greenleaf s vision for churches and seminaries resonated powerfully with our own earlier efforts to engage a seminary and local church congregations in an exploration of what factors in the life of a congregation function to either enable or frustrate their capacity to support their members in this way. Following the closing of the Center for the Ministry of the Laity at Andover Newton Theological School, this work with congregations lay fallow for more than a decade. More recently, this research around how to strengthen the capacity of local congregations to support their members in drawing upon their faith as a resource to their holding in trust their workplace and community institutions has become the centerpiece of an exciting initiative at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. Through their extensive reach as the nation s largest Lutheran theological school, Luther s Centered~Work initiative is planning to engage thousands of congregations around this vision of local churches becoming better able to support their members in linking their faith to their everyday workplace settings within society s organizations. 13 A Practical Theology Capable of Undergirding Those Seeking To Hold Institutions In Trust Greenleaf was convinced that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for churches and seminaries to wield the kind of institution-renewing influence he envisioned so long as its theology was largely individually and interpersonally focused, a focus which he deemed important but inadequate to the task of orienting us toward the pressing challenge of holding institutions in trust. In his essay The Need For A Theology of Institutions, he worried about the absence of such a theology: 6 those who draw their spiritual sustenance from churches and are concerned for preparing people who will care and serve in our complex, tension-torn world have largely extrapolated from the available theology of persons and seem not to have explicitly faced the question of what a committed person does one who is capable of being a strong quality-building force within our institutions. As a consequence, too much of the effort to care and serve is directed to easing the hurt of the system that is grinding people down faster than the most valiant rescue effort can help the; and too little caring effort is going into building a system (institutions) that will have a positive growing effect on people How can a contemporary theology of institutions be brought into being, one that will encourage, prepare, and support committed people to make careers inside institutions as initiators of regenerative quality-building action? 14 It is this second dimension of Greenleaf s call for a theology of institutions the task of developing a theological understanding of institutions capable of undergirding the commitment and informing the perspective of those who would hold institutions in trust that became the focus of our own efforts. ONE EFFORT TO DEVELOP A PRACTICAL THEOLOGY OF INSTITUTIONS Our approach to this undertaking was informed by a simple premise and a difficult problem. Our premise was that any genuinely useful theology of institutions would necessarily emerge from the collaborative engagement between those whose center of gravity is primarily within the religious tradition (mostly seminary faculty and church leaders) and those who spend the great majority of their time preoccupied with the life and performance of the organizations where they work. An adequate theology of institutions can emerge only from an exploration which engages both of these worlds the theological tradition and the world of organizations - with genuine care and respect. The difficult problem is to pull this off. Our experience of the engagement of these two worlds with one another was that it was exceedingly difficult to achieve the desired balance. Too often in our

7 experience, in engaging the world of secular institutions, the Protestant church in North America tends to either blandly and uncritically affirm organizations and their leadership or, on the other hand, errs in the opposite direction by regarding and addressing institutions with an indiscriminately critical and unforgiving eye. These unfortunate alternatives reflect a broader societal tendency noted by John Gardner when he wrote about institutions being trapped between those persons (often on the inside) who are comfortable, complacent and unwilling to see the institution change, and those prophets (usually on the outside) who insist that the institution must change or else they will burn it down. He described this as the battle between "the uncritical lovers" and the "unloving critics" suggesting that "love without criticism brings stagnation, but criticism without love brings destruction." 15 Perhaps because of an awareness of these two equally undesirable tendencies, in our experience, the thoughtful engagement of clergy and organizational leaders (particularly business leaders) tended to not happen at all. Business leaders tended to shy away from the conversation, suspecting that their organizational world was of no real interest to their pastors, or more problematically, regarded by clergy with suspicion, as being fundamentally unworthy of their respect. For their part, clergy, while curious, did not pursue this engagement, in part because they felt ill prepared for the engagement, uncertain what they might bring of value to conversations about complex and frequently high-stakes dilemmas facing the women and men who sat in worship on Sunday. 16 We were convinced, then, that in order to develop a theology of institutions capable of undergirding the church s commitment to hold institutions in trust, it must emerge from a different kind of engagement between church leaders and lay people with operational responsibility within secular organizations. It must emerge from a conversation in which organizational leaders experience their complex worlds and the consequential decisions they face in these settings being held in trust through a dialogue marked both by respect and rigorous engagement. We were also clear that an essential test of the adequacy of any theology of institutions which emerged from this engagement would be the extent to which it offered a basis for the development and support of "loving critics" capable of holding institutions in trust. One may hold an organization in trust either as a regenerative agent who works from within or as one who accompanies these organizations in a trustee role. Either way, the work of holding an institution in trust demands that one brings a larger sense of one s role and purpose in the world and, similarly, a larger vision for the role and purpose of their institution in the greater scheme of things. A theology of institutions must help us to make this essential connection between that which is of pressing and immediate concern and what, on the other hand, is of ultimate importance. Given theses clarities, we determined that our approach toward developing a practical theology of institutions should meet the twin criteria of being tangibly grounded in organizational life and clearly informed by theological perspective. To ensure that the effort was tangibly grounded in organizational life and experience, we: 1. held our meetings onsite at the workplace settings of participating organizations. 2. focused our reflection around consequential and unresolved real-time issues presented by participating organizations. 3. oriented our engagement toward the goal of holding one another s organizations in trust around the organization s well-being and its impacts on constituents both within and outside of the organization. 7

8 4. worked to ensure that the majority of those participating in our meetings had ongoing operational or trustee responsibility for real organizations. 5. adopted as a key ground rule for our meetings an agreement to maintain the confidentiality of our conversations in order to permit frank engagement around issues of importance. To ensure that our effort was clearly informed by theological perspective, we: 1. sought to identify theological conversation partners from seminary and church settings capable of bringing: commitment to this exploration of the interface of theological tradition and organizational life. curiosity, good listening skills and an attitude of fundamental respect to their encounter with the complex and ambiguous world of organizational life and its dilemmas. insight and knowledge of the theological tradition and the capacity to make it accessible. 2. worked with theologians to identify relevant concepts or premises within our particular Reformed theological tradition capable of reshaping our understanding of organizational life and its purposes. 3. developed a theological model of organizational life, translated it into secular language for use within organizations as a framework for seeing things whole, and worked with organizations around its integration and use. 4. developed a process for enabling men and women to gather around an organization and it is leaders for the purpose of holding the organization in trust around a difficult challenge facing it. What follows is a brief description of what this effort has yielded to date and how it has come to expression in the life of a particular organization. FIVE THEOLOGICAL PREMISES FOR THOSE WHO WOULD HOLD ORGANIZATIONS IN TRUST We have come to identify several theological premises which shape the way we regard institutions and consequently how we engage them. These premises form the basis of a practical theology of institutions, constituting a theology capable of informing our practice. In speaking with others, we have found that the essential truth of some of these premises resonate with similar truths emerging from other religious traditions. It bears acknowledging, however, that our articulation of these premises does in fact derive from a particular religious perspective the Reformed Protestant Christian tradition one which we do not regard as normative or authoritative for people whose religious persuasions are different from our own. Having acknowledged this, here are five premises that we believe are important elements of a practical theology of institutions. Premise #1: Institutions are part of God s order. Walter Wink, a biblical scholar whose writings on the powers and principalities have powerfully shaped our theological understanding of institutions, writes: These Powers are the necessary social structures of human life, and it is not a matter of indifference to God that they exist. God made them. For this reason the account of creation in Genesis does not end in chapter 2, with the creation of the world, but in chapter 10, with the creation of the nations The meaning is clear, he concludes. Humanity is not possible apart from its social institutions. 17 8

9 Premise #2: God loves institutions. As part of God s world, institutions are the object of God s love. However, it is not enough to say God loves institutions in an abstract or general sense. Our tradition understands God s love to be not only a universal attribute of the divine, but also the essence of God s intimate concern for each of us as individuals. Believing that God s love is both universal and particular, we are compelled to declare not only that God loves institutions in general, but that God loves each institution in all of its messy particularity. From my perspective, the implications of this assertion are stunning! They begin to become apparent when you try out the premise by completing the statement, God loves with the name of particular institutions. God loves the New York City Fire and Police Departments. God loves the International Red Cross and Amnesty International. God loves Mondragón and British Airways. So far, so good. What goes on for you, however, when you make the same affirmation for other, perhaps less likely, institutions? God loves Enron, WorldCom, or Tyco? If you are anything like me, this latter assertion may leave you a little edgy. Nevertheless, we believe it is true, and that rooting ourselves in this conviction offers an important basis for the kind of compassionate regard for organizations that is capable of enabling us to serve as critical lovers who hold them in trust. Premise #3: Institutions are living systems. The affirmation that institutions are living systems links two important assertions, both fundamental to seeing institutions whole. The first is that institutions are alive. To say this is to recognize that the being-ness of institutions is comprised not only of its more tangible outward and physical reality (e.g. its facilities, people, formal organizational and information systems, technology and equipment), but along with this a less-tangible interiority or animating spirit whose energy is reflected through a combination of historical memory, shared convictions and dreams, proud successes and bitter disappointments. This animating spirit (spoken of by others as an organization s DNA or culture) is enduring, a red thread persevering through the institution s storyline over time, and must be well understood by those who would seek to hold the organization in trust. The other assertion of this premise is that institutions are systems. As such they are wholly interdependent with the entire evolving world around them, both impacting and affected by everything that takes place throughout the constantly emerging reality of the existing order. A fundamental mindfulness discipline of healthy organizations is maintaining a consistent awareness of these twin dimensions of the institution s utter interdependence with the world around it: both its fundamental dependence upon that world, and the inevitable intended and unintended consequences of its decisions and actions upon that same world. Of course, the recognition of institutions as systems also has significant implications for the way we understand the internal life of organizations-as a whole comprised of a constant and dynamic interdependence of countless elements exercising conspicuous or invisible influence on one another. 18 The three-fold model organizational life developed by Seeing Things Whole and presented later in this essay is a theological recognition of the systemic nature of organizations. It is around this awareness of organizations as systems (and as existing within systems) that we find particularly relevant both Greenleaf s reminder that the root meaning of the word religion (re ligio) is to re-bind, and his recognition of the importance of seeing things whole as the basis for this. Premise #4: Institutions are called and gifted, they are fallen, and they are capable of being redeemed. Here we have three important theological assertions about the nature of organizations embedded in a single statement. While each is essential in its own right, they are presented here together for an important reason. Institutions are called and gifted: As expressions of God s dynamic and unfolding order, institutions are here for a reason. They are intended to be instruments of God s healing and reconciling purposes, and are both gifted and called to serve the common good in particular ways. They exist for good purposes, they are capable of good things, and good things are expected of them. 9

10 Institutions are fallen: As members of God s order, institutions are prone to inflating themselves, forgetting their membership in the larger community of God s creation, and to acting in ways that neglect or harm the common good. In this sense, they are much like each of us, capable both of great good and immeasurable harm. Institutions are capable of being redeemed: Unlike the first two dimensions of this assertion which to many may appear self-evident, this third is clearly a statement of faith. No matter how unlikely, how apparently fallen or broken, institutions are capable of reawakening to their own best possibilities. Part of holding an organization in trust is reminding it of its own best possibilities, and calling it back toward a recommitment to this potential. This is particularly difficult when the institution s collective sensibilities have become anesthetized by the gratification of their narrower self interests, paralyzed by fear or anger, or burdened by the shame of past failures. Fundamental to holding an organization in trust, particularly around its brokenness, is the recognition that all three of these realities that the institution is gifted and called, that it is fallen, and that it is capable of being reawakened to its best possibilities all three of these exist in every institution. Moreover, they exist not as mutually exclusive truths, but rather they coexist simultaneously as possibilities within the life of each institution, each present in some measure at any given moment in the organization s life. 19 Premise # 5: Faithfulness in institutional life is predicated upon the recognition and management of multiple bottom lines. A working theology of institutions should do more than offer us a basis for reflecting from the perspective of religious faith on the nature and purpose of organizations while looking in on them from the outside. Ideally it should also offer a conceptual framework capable of informing the perspective and decision-making of those who would serve as regenerative agents operating within. It should also be accessible to everyone irregardless of religious orientation, offering a conceptual framework for seeing things whole. Here, of course, we begin to reckon with an important truth about our organizations. Namely, that their spiritual and religious orientation is far from homogeneous. Instead, those who work within our organizations comprise an exceedingly rich mosaic of religious traditions, spiritual practices and secular philosophical and values-based orientations. From the perspective of the organizational leaders with whom we were working, while organizational decision-making and performance consistent with their own sacred ideals was highly desirable, they were equally committed to pursuing this in a way that did not impose their personal religious belief system on their co-workers. What we need, they said, is a non-religious way of gaining theological perspective together on the challenges and decisions we face. The challenge, then, was to develop an operational theological framework that simultaneously offered insight into the operational dynamics and realities of organizational life while moving at real depth with a religiously diverse workforce. In seeking to accomplish this, we drew upon a theological model that had been developed to describe the nature of one institution, the church, and then moved to translate that model into secular language that reflects dimensions of life familiar to most secular organizations. It was during early conversations with the theological faculty at Andover Newton Theological School while searching for a theological framework for understanding institutions, that Gabriel Fackre proposed the Threefold Office of Christ as one possibility 20. He suggested this framework, in part, because it was one of the early ways the Christian Church articulated a theological understanding of its own institutional life. It also resonated with the action-research findings during the MAP years which insisted that the conventional bottom-line theory of organizations failed to reflect the reality of the multiple bottom-lines that many leaders attempt to take into account in their decision-making. 10

11 The threefold office of Christ, attributed to theologian John Calvin, identifies the roles of Prophet, Priest and King as three essential expressions of the life and ministry of Jesus. These same roles are prominent in Hebrew Scripture, each representing both a unique expression of power and way of mediating God s relationship with Israel and the surrounding world. In consultation with Fackre, we developed non-religious language describing these three dimensions in organizational life while still reflecting the theological tradition. Each of the dimensions represents a cluster of preoccupations, associated stakeholders, core values, and ways of exercising power that are characteristic in organizational life. There are predictable and legitimate tensions among these three areas, and at times these tensions can operate destructively within the life of an organization. In a healthy organization, these dimensions function not as separate fiefdoms within the institution, but rather as a commonwealth of collaborative service. When any one area loses sight of this fundamental interdependence with the other dimensions, it is prone to a more destructive expression of its concerns. The three Offices or spheres and our secular translation of each include the following: Identity Purpose Stewardship The Identity (Priestly) Dimension of Organizational Life: Theologically, this office represents an understanding of Jesus as high priest who, having experienced the vulnerability of the human condition, offers his life as a sacrifice capable of restoring to wholeness the brokenness in the divine-human relationship. This dimension is primarily concerned with healing, wholeness and well-being of the gathered life of the organization. The primary stakeholders associated with this dimension are those who work for the organization. Its preoccupations include a concern for how the organization structures the character and quality of its gathered life; how it creates an environment that reflects its core values, and how it draws members of its workforce toward their fullest potential. This would include how the organization designs its work spaces; how it recruits, hires, evaluates, rewards, and dismisses its employees; how it disseminates information; how it distributes power and assigns accountability; and how it models investment in and commitment to the values it professes. Marks of faithfulness in this dimension include: o explicit acknowledgement of the values and principles guiding the life of the organization; o those who work for the organization personally resonate with these values; o o private and public life congruent with these values; and the capacity for honest self-reflection, including recognition of instances when the organization has some measure failed to uphold its values. 11

12 The Purpose (Prophetic) Dimension of Organizational Life: Theologically, this office represents an understanding of Jesus as the prophet who, bears witness to an alternative order; a witness which includes both the articulation of a compelling vision and a critique that recognizes the dissonance between things as they are and what ought to be. Whereas the Identity dimension of organizational life is inwardly focused, the Purpose dimension is focused outward, on the organization s interface with and impact on the world around it. The primary stakeholders associated with this dimension are its customers or clients, its suppliers, its competitors, and the natural and human communities whose lives are in some way affected by the organization. Its preoccupations include a concern for the clarity of the organization s vision and mission; how it structures the processes for producing a good that is needed and valued by others; how it markets or sells this good; and how it serves the client and the wider world in short, how the organization justifies its existence to the larger world around it. Marks of faithfulness in this dimension include: o a mission that offers a serious response to real needs in the world around it; o o accountability to the world around it for the exercise of its mission; an understanding of service that leaves those served better informed, less dependent and more empowered in the exercise of their own capacities. The Stewardship (Royal) Dimension of Organizational Life: Theologically, this office represents an understanding of Jesus as ruler. Whereas traditionally kings had exercised their power in a coercive way, bending persons and institutions to their will in order to make things happen, Jesus modeled a fundamentally different understanding of leadership in which serving, empowering, facilitating, and persuading are the essential approaches. In organizational life the primary stakeholders associated with this dimension include management, owners, and trustees. Its preoccupations include a concern for how the organization secures and utilizes its resources (human, financial, and material) so as to sustain its viability while balancing the legitimate needs of each of its stakeholders and the wider community. Marks of faithfulness in this dimension include: o decision-making that expresses confidence in the long-term sustainable future of all stakeholders; o o governance marked by inclusivity and structures and systems which constantly evolve to sustain the capacity of the organization to utilize its unique gifts in service to the world around it. A complete articulation of this model, including a description of the shadow possibilities associated with each of the dimensions, is presented in Appendix A. The challenge of balancing the legitimate concerns associated with these multiple bottom lines came into focus in a dramatic way at Engineered Products 21, a company with whom we had been working around the use of the three-fold framework as a tool for seeing things whole around important organizational decisions. I remember at one point we were bidding for a major contract, Ed, the GM of Engineered Products, recalled. This was the next generation of a product we had already been producing for one of the Big Three auto manufacturers. We were competing to retain the contract to produce this component. The stakes were high for us, because not only had we engineered it, but we had, of course, heavily invested in the machinery for producing it. Moreover, this product represented more than 15% of our business. We felt we couldn t afford to lose this contract. Our customer, on the other hand, was committed to maximizing their own bottom line by pressing for the lowest possible bid on the product, so the competition between our company and our competitor a company we respect a lot was fierce. They had struc- 12

13 tured the bidding process to encourage a race to the bottom every time they would receive a bid from one of us, they would turn around and show it to the competitor and invite them to try to beat it. Because of this, the bidding got ridiculously low so much so that we had pretty much cut our profit margin out of the proposal in an effort to get our numbers down. Nevertheless, our competitor came back with another bid that was even lower than ours. You have to understand that at this point, our adrenaline was flowing. Our team went into a marathon session to make our proposal irresistible. Because we had already given up our profit margin on the product, the only way we could sweeten our proposal was to offer cost reductions on other product lines we provided for this manufacturer. We were so bent on winning, however, that we didn t hesitate to do even this. It was a momentum thing. It wasn t until a few hours later, after we had faxed out this final proposal that the full impact of what we had just done came home to us. In order to win the business, we had given away the earnings margin which supports our research and new product development and our employees gain-sharing compensation plan the very things that help to make us so competitive. We looked at each other and said, What have we just done!? And at that point, we knew there was only one thing we could do. We called our customer and withdrew our proposal. Our competitor won the contract and we re glad they did. They have taken a beating with it. We re fortunate that we came to our senses in time. That s when it became clear to us that in order for our company to stay healthy, we have to pay attention to more than just one bottom line. The Threefold Model and Organizational Core Values A key for using this framework to support faithfulness in organizational life lies in the organization s becoming quite explicit about what values ought to guide the organization s decision-making and performance around each of these three bottom lines. In our work with Engineered Products and our other action-research partners, we engaged them in a process of clarifying their essential core values related to each of the three dimensions of their organization s life. The hope was that the language of core values might provide a common idiom, providing those within organizations a nonsectarian way of expressing shared ideals and applying these ideals to their corporate processes of planning and decision-making. 22 It is important, we believe, in identifying its core values that an organization develop not a single composite list of all of its values, but rather clusters of values related to each of the organization s three dimensions. (For a description of the core values identified by Engineered Products, see Appendix B.) The operating assumption here is that just as the organization must pay attention to multiple bottom lines which are frequently in some measure of tension with one another, so also must it manage the tension among the values related to each of these three dimensions. (For a summary of factors which can block or enable the effort to develop the capacity to see things whole within an organization, see Appendix C.) The very nature of moral dilemmas confronts us not with the clear choice between absolute right and wrong, good and evil, but rather the anxious uncertainty that attends having to discern the best way forward amidst a more ambiguous terrain of competing goods and multiple legitimate interests. Managing faithfully is grounded in the commitment to see things whole. This is undermined by the insistence that one set of values constitutes the real bottom-line of the organization. As a resource to this challenge we have been working with partners in our action-research organizations to develop processes that attempt to recognize which core values are in significant tension with one another around a given challenge or decision, and then to utilize them in the strategic problemsolving and decision-making that finally must take place. We also have operated with the assumption that organizations, just like individuals, function more faithfully when they operate within a community of discernment and support where challenges are examined by those who hold the organization in trust even though they do not carry the ultimate responsibility for its decisions. 13

14 A PROCESS FOR HOLDING INSTITUTIONS IN TRUST: A CASE STUDY During the past ten years, a network of colleagues from across the United States has developed around this exploration of the intersection of religious belief and organizational life. Those involved include organizational leaders, theologians, and organizational development practitioners. They have come together twice a year during this time for the purpose of sharing ideas and experimenting with different approaches for gaining theological perspective on organizational life. Their consistent priority in these gatherings, however, has been the goal of holding one another s organizations in trust. 23 Their gatherings take place over a two or three-day period. Participants come together at the facility of the host organization over a light supper on the evening of the first day, usually a Friday, some having traveled considerable distance for the sole purpose of serving someone else s organization. Old friends greet one another, and typically a few new friends are welcomed into the circle for the first time. Following supper, representatives of the host organization guide a walking tour through their facility, allowing participants to soak in the organization s atmosphere and perhaps in some way catch glimmers of its spirit through the arrangement of its work spaces, from the photos on walls, and expressions on the faces of nearby employees. Participants then regather for a time of orientation in preparation for their work of the next day. They are reminded by the facilitator that they have been called to gather as a circle of temporary trustees, whose purpose for the next 24 hours is to hold a member organization in trust around a difficult challenge it is facing. As temporary trustees their role is not to solve the problem by offering expert advice about the dilemma facing the organization. Rather they are to draw upon their own lived experience and the sacred ideals and lore of their faith traditions for wisdom and perspective and inspiration which may be a source of encouragement and guidance to the leadership team of the focus organization as they wrestle with the challenge that will be described. They are reminded of the importance of listening deeply with ears and hearts, and of maintaining a discipline of confidentiality. They are invited to be mindful that they have, by virtue of the intentions they bring and the trust they are about to assume, entered together into sacred time and sacred space. And then, for the remainder of that evening, they continue the process begun earlier through the walking tour of meeting the focus organization as its leadership team shares stories of the organization s beginning (For what reason did it originally come into existence?); its purpose (Who does it serve, and how?); its employees (Who does the work, and what is it like for them to work here?); critical or defining moments in the organization s history; and, ultimately, the challenge which currently faces them as an organization. The rhythms of these trustee gatherings are familiar. The participants are weary from the fullness of their own workweeks and their travel to be here on a Friday evening. And yet, to a person, they lean forward in their chairs, eyes alive, as they drink in these stories, attuning themselves to the unique character of this particular organization, its journey, and the challenge before it. On this particular weekend, we were gathered to hold Engineered Products in trust. Ed, their general manager, began his evening presentation by referring to our walking tour earlier that evening through their manufacturing plant. Do you know the last line we stopped at? The one where you met some of the folks assembling our product? Eight months from now, these folks will no longer have jobs here at this plant. We re moving these lines to Mexico. We ve got to in order to meet the price downs demanded by our customer. We simply can t squeeze any more cost savings out of this line without reducing the direct labor costs associated with it. We ve struggled to gain every efficiency we can, and simply don t have any 14

15 options left. And it s killing us. These are our people. They re good at what they do, and some of them have been with us for a long time. And you want to hear something really scary? We don t know how long we ll be able to stay in Mexico either. Because everything is already migrating to China, where the additional savings on labor are impossible to ignore. Ed went on to remind participants of the recent history of Engineered Products, a firm which develops high-tech components for the transportation industry. The great majority of their business had been with Big Three U.S. auto manufacturers. They had gained a reputation for producing a technically superior product, and had done well despite increasing pressures related to industry changes. Things began to change dramatically six or seven years ago as the Big Three, in response to the competitive pressures they were experiencing from particularly the Japanese auto industry, began to aggressively seek savings from their suppliers companies like us. Initially, we were able to respond to the price-downs our customers were demanding by tightening up our manufacturing process and reducing our material costs. This was actually a good thing for us and our customers had a right to expect it. We re really proud of the quality and efficiency of our manufacturing operation. This has not been enough for our customers, however. The pressures have been enormous, and it hasn t always been easy to keep a positive perspective on customer service. By the time of this gathering, the relationship between Engineered Products and their customers had undergone a complete metamorphosis, moving from a mutually beneficial collaboration between customer and supplier, to one that felt more like the wary relationship between predator and prey. Our customers began to demand access to our books in order to determine what additional cost savings we might be able to achieve. They were demanding a down payment of $300,000 or $400,000 or more on the cost savings we would deliver over the life of the contract, with the regular stipulation being that we would guarantee between 5-10% additional cost savings for each year of the product. Some of our competitors were going out of business, and we were focusing nearly all of our engineering resources toward our manufacturing process and product redesign. This was at the expense of research and new product development, something we ve always been known for and taken pride in. This inability to better protect our R&D has come back to haunt us. Have you considered simply not complying with your customer s demand for a price-down? one trustee inquired. Yes, Ed responded. In fact, as a leadership team we had determined that the next time we were asked to deliver a price-down that was impossible to achieve or that did not make sense for our business, we would refuse. We didn t have to wait long. What happened? We were informed that in order to retain one piece of business, that we would have to reduce our price by 25% or risk losing the contract. We responded indicating that we could continue to provide the product and the existing price. And what did they do? Six months later, they cancelled all orders with us for that part, and brought on a competitor from China who had duplicated our product. We didn t blink, and we lost. This is why we can t see any option to relocating this product line to Mexico. We simply can t afford to lose it, and there s no other way of achieving the price-down they re demanding. Do you have any new product launches that can replace the line that s leaving? Yes, we do, but not enough to sustain growth in the U.S. That s what I mean about our inability to better protect our R&D. In the past, we ve been able to replace departing products in our North American facility with new product launches, and in that way have been able to keep our business and workforce growing. This time, we don t have anything ready to go. 15

16 By virtue of our work together over time, the leadership of Engineered Products had come to describe their organization in terms of the threefold theological model of organizational life with its dimensions of: Identity (the character and gathered life of the organization), Purpose (how the organization serves the world around it), and Stewardship (how the organization relates to its resources and governs itself) each represent a cluster of legitimate concerns that frequently exist in some measure of tension with one another. For those gathered, these represented three bottom lines to be held in creative balance by those who would hold organizations in trust, each with its own cluster of typical stakeholders (Identity: employees, their families, and communities; Purpose: customers, suppliers, and competitors; Stewardship: owners, managers, stock holders) whose needs and interest are similarly in tension. At this point, the 30 men and women who had gathered to hold Engineered Products in trust moved into three working groups, each focused on of these three dimensions of Engineered Products life. Each group was accompanied by a member of Engineered Products leadership team, present to answer questions and provide additional information. They were asked to reflect three questions, and to report back on any insights that emerged for them. The questions were: Who are the primary stakeholders associated with your area? What do they care most about? What might it mean to faithfully engage them around the related challenges of: o The job loss related to the movement of the product line. o The continued pressures toward price-downs and competing as a global company. As you might imagine, the meeting of each of these working groups was unique, focused as they were by the different stakeholder groups whose needs were quite different from one another. The meeting focused on the Identity dimension of Engineered Products was particularly dynamic, as participants joined Engineered Products leadership in worrying about the implications for those whose jobs would be lost as the result of relocating the product line. One of tangible decisions facing EP s leadership around this was the question of when to tell employees working on these product lines that their jobs would moving to Mexico. This conversation took a surprising turn when one of the participants with some hesitation, offered this reflection. Your dilemma got me thinking about something Robert Greenleaf wrote in his initial essay The Servant as Leader. I want to preface it, though, by letting you know of the enormous respect I have for your management team and for the obvious integrity and great skill you are bringing to your leadership in a very difficult situation. I have some appreciation of the kind of very difficult market pressures you are dealing with here. We are also facing them in our own industry, but my sense is that they are not as acute as those you have been wrestling with in the auto industry. We are proud to be associated with you. At one point in his essay, Greenleaf observed that a central ethic of leadership is that of foresight, and said something to the effect that if you find as a leader that you are facing a dilemma with no good options to choose from, then it is almost certain that at some point earlier on you stood in a crossroads maybe not recognizing it at the time - where your decision or lack of decision somehow contributed to getting you where you are now. Assuming that may be true, I wonder how it would be at some point for you to reflect as a leadership team on when those moments of decision-making might have occurred. With the benefit of hindsight, do you recognize now decisions that you were faced with then that had you made them differently, things might have might have, not would have unfolded in a way that left you with better options to choose from in this moment. The point in doing this is not to beat yourselves up, but rather to lay any burdens down that you might unconsciously be carrying around and to harvest any learnings you can, because I don t think these market dynamics are going to change anytime soon. 16

17 Early the next week, Ed and his leadership team met to reflect together on the insights and questions emerging from the conversations of the past weekend. Several days later, they gathered their employees for one of their occasional brown-bag luncheon meetings. After offering a general update on overall market conditions, Ed told the employees that he knew that many of them were anxious about the possibility of their jobs disappearing with the anticipated movement of products lines to their plant in Mexico, and he wanted to give them as much information as possible to help them plan for the transitions that some of them would be facing. He shared with all of the employees the rough schedule for the staged movement of these lines over the course of the next 10 months. He acknowledged that the next scheduled product launches were far enough away to prevent any smooth transition, and that consequently most of these jobs would be lost for the foreseeable future, and then outlined preparations the company was making to help those losing jobs to find new employment. Already, as a result of conversations with other local industries, they had identified a need for 30 employees with similar skill-sets. Ed then went on to say, Obviously, this is painful, and we hoped it would never come to this point. We worked hard to prevent it, and while there are lots of good decisions we have made over the last several years, we have not been perfect. In looking back, there are a couple of decisions that, had we made them differently, may have helped us to avoid this. After describing a few of those decisions, Ed concluded saying, Again, while in looking back we found a lot to feel good about, those particular decisions I just described are ones we wish we had made differently. When I asked Ed what kind of response he received from the employees, he said, At the end of the meeting, one of the folks who s in an at-risk position stood up and said, This is why we like working here. You ve always been up front with us. When you go out on the floor, spirits seem remarkably good. You know, Ed continued, The group coming together to hold us in trust that weekend was incredibly important. Part of it is that it is a great group of folks, who bring so much wisdom and insight to bear on our situation. But a lot of things we talked about, we d already been thinking about before the gathering. This time, though, we were talking about our situation in the midst of a community. In hearing ourselves describe our situation to you all, we somehow felt the impact more powerfully, and we felt accountable to a wider community for doing everything we possibly could about it. SOME NEXT STEPS While the learnings continue to emerge from these initial efforts to develop a practical theology of institutions, it is clear that there is much work yet to be done. From our perspective, there are several fronts that feel particularly important and deserving of our attention. They represent a recognition of the importance of both deepening and broadening the conversation. Language and Sacred Ideals: From the outset our conversations within organizations have been framed with the non-religious language of ethics, purpose and values. This reflects a conscious decision, arrived at in conversation with our organizational partners, to cast the conversation as inclusively as possible, to enable broad participation from employees throughout organizations, regardless of their own personal religious or spiritual persuasions. For this reason, the Three-fold Model of Organizational Life at its root a theological framework has been translated into non-religious language, and used as a framework for eliciting and organizing the core values of a given organization. Leaders within some of the organizations with whom we have been working have expressed the belief that this three-fold framework is more universal than might first appear, given its theological roots 17

18 in the Reformed Christian tradition. It also seems to connect, using a different language of interpretation, to the religious traditions of Judaism and Islam. The challenge that confronts us is how to explore these possible connections without trivializing the depth and profundity of each tradition, on the one hand, and discovering a way to learn from the rich uniqueness of each, on the other. The first challenge might be met by having Jewish and Islamic scholars examine the three-fold model from their religious traditions to determine its usefulness and relevance. The second challenge, of discovering ways to learn from the rich uniqueness of one another s traditions, especially within the context of the organizational environment where people work together, is a little more daunting. Our colleagues have expressed the hope (and at the same time their ambivalence) that we might deepen the conversation about organizational faithfulness within a given organization by discovering ways of inviting employees to draw upon their own religious and spiritual traditions as a wisdom resource to critical organizational decisions. Their ambivalence (and our own) reflects an awareness of how easy it is for such conversations to become divisive, particularly when participants share their own religious perspective in ways that suggest that it ought to be authoritative for others in the organization. One promising resource for supporting such a conversation resides in the work and research of Dr. Douglas Schoeninger and his colleagues who have been developing rules of dialogue. These rules are grounded in his belief that each person, whether they acknowledge this or not, is a child of God and, as such, has a unique contribution to make and a truth to share that can enrich the whole. Therefore, it is important for individuals both to feel free to speak their own truth and to provide hospitable space for others to speak their truth. The rules Schoeninger has been developing, when agreed to by participants in the dialogue, help to create a safe space where people can risk sharing ideas that are not fully formed in the understanding that one s truth is never finished. We believe the best place to begin experimenting with these rules is an on-going work group within the same organization where they have already established a trust level and respect for each other s contribution to decision-making. In accepting and using the rules, we believe participants would establish a structure for safe dialogue that might enable them to consciously draw on their unique sacred beliefs and traditions and discover what they share in common as well as new ideas to deepen their common and individual journeys. We hope to test this thesis this year. Forming Religious Congregations That Empower Servant Leaders and Enable Servant Institutions As noted earlier, in Bob Greenleaf s vision of servant leaders serving as regenerative agents in developing servant institutions, he saw an essential role for religious congregations. In his essay The Need for a Theology of Institutions, he wrote, I do not believe that the urgently needed fundamental reconstruction of our vast and pervasive structure of institutions can take place, prudently and effectively, without a strong supporting influence from the churches. The reality, however, is that very few congregations of any religious tradition are committed to and structured for the equipping of their members for service in their day-to-day workplaces. Even fewer congregations recognize and affirm the critically important role their members can play in serving as regenerative agents in building servant institutions. As Greenleaf recognized, this failure is in large part due to the absence of a theology of institutions. It also reflects the orientation and training provided by seminaries where clergy are prepared for their leadership roles in congregations. And finally it is a function of the way most congregations are structured so that their principal focus is on their interior life and the needs of the congregation as institution. 18

19 In collaboration with Luther Seminary s Center for Life-long Learning in a new initiative called Centered Life-Centered Work, Seeing Things Whole has shared the fruit of its research with organizations and learnings about how temporary trustees can hold an organization and its leadership in trust. This temporary trustee model is now being tested for use within religious congregations which are open to becoming centers of support and empowerment for their lay members in their role as institutional servant leaders. In addition Faith At Work, a national organization of clergy and laity, has undertaken a three-year research project with seven congregations to explore how the congregation can restructure itself to become the kind of empowering institution envisioned by Bob Greenleaf. These findings will be shared over the next three years through the Faith At Work magazine as well as with the leadership at Luther Seminary in St. Paul We have a long way to go to realize both Greenleaf s vision for religious institutions and the way they can serve to support and inspire a society of servant leaders and servant institutions, and Morikawa s dream of institutions awakening to an awareness of their purpose and calling. But their visions are compelling, and their insights continue to lend depth and urgency to our efforts. Someday, in the not too distant future, we trust we will see the emerging realization of his dream The movement I hope to see is when all institutions will become more serving of all persons they touch, to the end that those being served will grow as persons: while being served they will become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants. 24 The Need For A Theology of Institutions 19

20 Appendix A 20

21 21

22 22

23 23

24 Appendix B Engineered Products Shared Values Our Identity The area of Identity focuses our organization on the questions: Who are we? How does our organization structure the character and quality of our life together? Do we meet the full range of employee needs through attention to: the work environment how we recruit, hire and dismiss employees how employees are motivated, disciplined and rewarded how information is shared internally the rituals and customs that shape our organization s life Identity Core Values at Engineered Products: Teamwork: We value a highly collaborative style of working together, in which our employees function as teams committed to understanding and responding to the needs of our customers through the development and production of products that effectively serve them. We continually seek integration among all teams within the organization. Integrity: We value honesty, and seek to create an environment in which people are committed to accurately assessing and describing both successes and failures, delivering and receiving both good news and bad. Shared costs and benefits: We value all employees throughout the organization and demonstrate that by combining a competitive base wage with a value added gain sharing compensation plan. Everyone participates in the evolving well-being of the company by sharing in any value gained or lost resulting from the performance of the division. Education: We value a commitment to education, training and continuous self-improvement for all employees. Recognition: We will strive to recognize the achievements of all employees, for contributions both large and small, that help improve the quality of life within our organization. Individuality: We understand that the primary source of our creativity and performance is the individual. We encourage each individual to make independent decisions in the best interests of the organization. We will recognize and reward those who accept responsibility and accountability beyond the limits of their job descriptions. We encourage individuals to assume leadership in response to new challenges, threats and opportunities, and will support each person in the face of associated risks and consequences. 24

25 Our Purpose The area of Purpose focuses us on the question: What we do? looking at the kind and quality of the products we provide to our customers. We justify our division s existence through attention to: how well we define our mission how our organization projects itself publicly how we go about producing a product that is needed and valued how we serve our customer in the use of our products how the organization relates to our competitors and to the wider community Purpose Core Values at Engineered Products: Collaboration: Just as we value teamwork as a way of working together within Pollak, we seek it as well in working relationships with our suppliers and customers. We will adapt this philosophy so that it is operationalized in the context of the realities of our market. Superior Quality: We will serve the global marketplace through providing products of superior quality and value to our customers, delivered in a timely manner, and will strive for constant improvement in our products and the processes through which we develop and produce them. Acceptance of Change: We believe that the fact of ongoing change is a constant in life which must be embraced rather than resisted, and we will seek to anticipate the opportunities which flow from it, and adapt in ways that enable us to serve excellently in their midst. Core Competencies and Process Excellence: We will seek to identify, nurture, and maximize the potential of our core competencies as an organization, as a way of focusing our service to the world around us. We understand that our capacity to serve well is dependent on the processes and systems which enable us to do our work, and commit ourselves to strive for sustained excellence and innovation in our ongoing development of our processes and systems capabilities. 25

26 Our Fiduciary Responsibility The area of Fiduciary Responsibility focuses us on the questions: How do we do it? asking us how our organization utilizes its resources (human, financial, material) so as to sustain its viability over time while balancing the legitimate needs of all its stakeholders. We will do this through attention to: how our organization secures essential resources for its mission how we allocate our resources consistent with our core values and the legitimate needs of all of our stakeholders how we balance stakeholder needs how our organization makes decisions and shares information how we mediate disagreements and balance contending issues Fiduciary Responsibility Core Values at Engineered Products: Sustainability: We will seek to balance the quarter-to-quarter demands of the investment community with maximizing long-term profitability. This will enable us to fulfill our obligations to all of our stakeholders, including our shareholders, our employees, our customers, and the local community to which we belong. Integrative Decision-Making: We value honesty, and seek to create an environment in which people are committed to accurately assessing and describing both successes and failures, delivering and receiving both good news and bad. Shared costs and benefits: We will seek to make decisions in ways that draw upon and attempt to integrate diverse perspectives within Engineered Products, and to make the logic of our decision making process explicit and transparent. Growth: We will orient ourselves toward growth through prudent risk taking. Our organizational environment will be one where all teams can creatively pursue growth strategies balanced with the commercial management of our existing business, within the context of corporate goals, divisional metrics and team budgets. 26

27 Appendix C 27